“We don’t know,” he said. “That was Court business. Our business is the hunt.”
“What does that mean?”
“We don’t owe you anything,” the Wolf snapped. He jabbed a sharp finger at Somerset to underline the point, then curled it into his palm. “But when we were called to the Hunt, there was Saint-blood on the snow. We tasted it for the first time in centuries.”
So he’d been right. It wasn’t much comfort.
“Who called you?” he asked.
The Wolf had started to look bored. He looked away from Somerset and then back as he rolled his head to the side. “The Hunt Master,” he said. “That’s who always calls us.”
Because it didn’t matter who they werebefore. Once the Hunt was called, that was what they were. And Wolves didn’t care about names or blood, only someone’s function.
“What are youtalkingabout,” Stúfur asked, his voice wet. “What do you mean, what happened to Santa? Where is he?”
Ket laughed, shrill and annoyed. “Why do I work with you?”
Somerset didn’t break eye contact with the Wolf.
“He’s dead, he said flatly. “Santa’s dead.”
Shock choked Stúfur for a moment. “No,” he finally said. “He can’t be. We saw him a few days ago, when Gull took him hunting.”
“You won’t see him again,” Somerset said. “Will they—"
But he’d reached the limits of the Wolf’s patience.
“Enough,” the Wolf said. It nodded to someone just by Somerset’s shoulder, and the next thing he knew, something hard cracked across the back of his knees. He clenched his teeth against a yelp of pain, but he couldn’t stop his knees from folding under him. “We want the watch.”
“OK!” Dylan said. He sounded like he did when he was trying to talk some drunk down from doing something stupid at the bar. His voice was low and steady, calm if you didn’t know him.
Somerset grimaced out a humorless smile at that thought. It had turned out he was one of the ones that didn’t know Dylan.
“I’m going to get it now,” Dylan said as he edged around Somerset. He crouched in front of him and leaned forward to reach into his coat. The warmth of him felt like a touch, and Somerset took a quick breath and held it. “You can trust me.”
It felt like he meant that for Somerset instead of the Wolves. And just for a moment, Somerset did. He trusted him. Then Dylan leaned back and tossed the watch to the Wolf. It caught it out of the air.
Somerset lurched forward. He grabbed Dylan’s sleeve, but it was too late.
The Wolf behind him jammed a foot into his back and shoved him down into the ground. He snorted snow for the second time and swore to himself. His chest hurt like he’d broken something.
The Wolf dangled the watch from one finger as it held it up.
“Tell them,” Somerset said, pushing himself up despite the Wolf’s boot between his shoulder blades. “When you take that back to your Hunt Master? Tell them this isn’t over. We won’t let this stand. We won’t recognize the false Santa they put on the Sleigh.”
The Wolf closed its hand around the watch and looked at him.
“That’s not what they want,” he said.
The Wolf tossed the watch into the air again. As it came down, it snatched it up in his jaws and chewed, shredding the leather and cracking the glass. Magic leaked from between its lips like smoke, threads of ice and power, and the scent of cookies and milk, as it broke down Winter’s most powerful relic like old jerky.
Stúfur howled in frustration as he grabbed the handle of the fork and tried to wrench it out of his body. He yanked it back and forth in a fury, the tines widening the wounds in his gut. Over by the crushed bikes, Ket watched with hollow eyes and a grim expression.
Finally, the Wolf swallowed. He picked a cog from between his teeth and flicked it onto the snow.
“Santa’s dead,” he said. “Let him stay that way. That’s what the Hunt Master wanted, and that’s what we’ve done. What you do is up to you, but the unbroken line is… broken.”
…
